Market Your Book Like You Lost Your Keys

Maybe it’s a guy thing, but I must say on an almost daily basis, “Anyone see my keys?”  My family just shrugs their indifference to my frenzied plight.  They always turn up, usually in the most obvious place.

One time I left them in the front door.  Okay, many times.  I once left them in the car – with the motor running – and the doors locked.  On other occasions they are in my shirt, in a hidden pocket – and I’m wearing it!  But over the holiday break I went about five days in search of keys that ended up being where you’d expect them to be – in the pocket of my winter coat.

I hadn’t checked there because I was convinced they couldn’t be there.  It was too obvious of a place, but there they were after turning the house upside down.  I moved furniture and rugs that hadn’t been touched in years.  I looked high and low, imagining the worst.  The cost and inconvenience of replacing two car keys and house keys is enough of an incentive to push forward to find those keys.  I was so relieved once I did.

But it occurred to me that looking for the keys is a bit what the book marketing process is like.  You may feel like you’ll never find or achieve what you are looking to do, and yet you are certain that if you look or try hard enough it’ll turn up.  Often, we don’t start with the obvious and quickly make things more complex than they need to be.

So the lesson here – aside from getting a GPS chip to locate the ever-elusive keys – is to start your book publicity pursuit by doing what’s obvious, reachable, and conceivable.  Before you think big and dream far, take care of the basics.

Before you think of going on a 10-city tour, make sure your book’s published on time and you send advance review copies out 3-4 months in advance of your release date.

Before you design an intricate, souped-up website, make sure you blog several times a week and pursue connections via Twitter and Facebook.

Before you look to get an organization to bulk-buy hundreds of copies of your book, make sure you have distribution available to bookstores and libraries.

Before you try to sell your book to a movie studio, first generate local publicity for your book.

Before you look to land speakers bureau representation, make sure you speak at local bookstores and community centers.

First do the obvious and the easy – then pursue bigger things and dream even bigger!

DON’T MISS: ALL NEW RESOURCE OF THE YEAR

2015 Book PR & Marketing Toolkit: All New

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015